You know that I’m not a big chain restaurant girl… I avoid them whenever possible. But sometimes, you know, you just have to go. In R’s futile attempt at finding an appropriate party outfit for our holiday party on Friday (yes, I know, it’s way past the holidays), we had to appease my growling stomach, and stopped in on ye old Cheesecake Factory. Guess what folks? If you go on a weeknight at 9:30, you don’t have to wait for a table. Voila!

Free bread. Nothing wrong with that. Also, it was really nice out (near 70 degrees), so we both got smoothies. R’s was strawberry, mine was tropical, both were ginormous. It pretty much became my meal. My belly was full by the time the entrees came out, which really didn’t take very long. How do they cook these meals so quick? Especially considering they have umpteen-thousand items on their menu.

R got shrimp with angel hair pasta. As usual with most Cheesecake Factory food, ginormous. And look at those shrimp – they’re the size of my hand.

I went with the spicy chicken chipotle pasta. Again, giant plate, giant heaping of food. I barely made a dent in this. Luckily, I got to eat it for two additional meals. And even more luckily, I liked it. It had super sweet and fresh peas and asparagus, both favorites of mine. If you’re gonna put veggies in pasta, I’d vote for either of those any day. The pasta was also good and cooked well, the chipotle sauce spicy, but not too spicy. The chicken was a little dry and bland, and I wouldn’t have minded if there was no chicken in this at all. I do still have issue with the portions at this place. You could just half the portion and the price, and I don’t think anyone would mind. But you know, as is with everything else in America, everything just keeps getting bigger and bigger. But I can’t pretend that I don’t like their food. It is actually pretty good for the most part, even though I’d always pick a non-chain place first! And no, we were too stuffed to get cheesecake!

So people love burgers. We know this. And lately, it seems that lots of burger joints are popping up all over the place. So I’ve been doing this whole food bloggin’ thing for a year now. Perhaps it’s time for me to do some kind of taste-off. And to make it easy, let’s start with the burger.

I’ve been wanting to go to Five Guys for awhile. I’ve known about the downtown location for awhile, but never made it out. Since I live in the burbs, locations in Bala Cynwyd and Broomall were easier to get to. Last weekend after going to the gym, I thought what better way to ruin all that hard work than to get a greasy ass burger and fries. I hit up the Bala Cynwyd location on City Ave.

I read on another blog that they don’t let you take pictures of the burgers there. So I avoided it. I don’t need the humiliation of being chased out a burger joint by spatula wielding teenagers.

The system here is pretty simple. You get a burger or a cheeseburger, with bacon or without, and then pick whatever toppings you want. All toppings are free, which is a great touch. The regular burgers have 2 patties, the little burgers have 1. Then you can get fries. And drinks, if you so desire. I went with the little cheeseburger with fried onions, lettuce, and tomato. I’m a pretty simple gal. And I got small fries. And then I waited. A lot. Too much. If you only serve burgers and fries, you’d think you’d have plenty handy to dish out. But I did not feel this was a fast food place at all. I was wondering if they were slaughtering cows out back. Sheesh.

Another HUGE issue I had is that the floors were greasy. They have signs all over the place saying they only cook with peanut oil. What they don’t say, is that they spilled the peanut oil all over the damn floor. And it’s linoleum. Linoleum and peanut oil don’t mix. It was freaking DANGEROUS! Look Five Guys, it’s not gonna matter how good your damn burgers are if your patrons are falling on oily slippery floors and cracking their heads open. You need to fix that. Pronto.

A was in town for her sister in law’s wedding. We got together and had lunch over the weekend. She suggested Pei Wei, I said yey, yey. C got some tea, because he always does. It was fancy tea. It came in a fabric sachet. Ooh la la! He said it was pretty good.
A got the ginger broccoli with chicken. I liked this a lot. It was gingery, but not overly gingery. Just gingery enough for me. A and C thought it wasn’t gingery enough. But I found it just fine. Crunchy broccoli and lots of nice white meat chicken. Good sauce. I’m a fan. I could totally see myself ordering this in the future.

C got the orange peel pork. This was also pretty good. Not very orangey, but the sauce had a good flavor and had a bit of a kick. It came with carrots and snap peas, which were a nice complement.

I got the chicken teriyaki bowl, since I tasted this the last time and fell in love with it. It was just as good as before. Really folks, it’s about the sauce. There’s even cooked spinach and carrots in this, and I do not like cooked spinach or carrots (I like them raw just fine). And because of the sauce, I even ate that. So damn good. And with the brown rice, of course. I need to know what kind of brown rice they use, and how they cook it, because it’s the best.

They’re pretty eager about trying to get dishes and glasses off the table. They tried to take A’s soda away, even when she wasn’t done with it. So if you don’t hold on to stuff, it might disappear. Watch out! I like this place. The food is good, the portions large, the prices reasonable.